Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1887-01-20

ouo IAoH ud plc nave largely
taken their place. Experiments in steel
have even been made, but so far with un-
ltormly unsuccessful results.
The use of the toboggan, as pastime,
Is of recent origin. The Canadians first
took advantage of the natural slides
which their country afforded. The sport
was soon introduced in the vicinity of
Quebec, Montreal Toronto, and other
cities In the Dominion. The great diff
Guilty, however, was in getting slide of
perfect grade and smoothness, two
conditions almost absolutely indispen-
able to the full enjoyment of taboggan-
ing.
10 overcome this objection artificial
slides were suggested. The idea was
probably borrowed from the Russians.
VINO, Notwithstanding that large part of
their country is fiat and unbroken. are
SAID to be enthusiastic tobogganers, even
though they are obliged to depend wholly
on the artificial slide for support Though
proposed by enthusiasts the idea proved
successful.
The slide of the Tueque Blue Tobog-
gan club at Montreal became famous
The sport was too fascinating to remain
long confined to one locality The towns
along the Canadian shores of the st. Law
renee soon had their slides and their
clubs.
A private slide was erected in the
quaint little town of Prescott And the
season following its next neighbor lust
across the river, Ogdensburg, constructed
one of the first slides in the United
States.
The Americans became as enthusiastic
over the sport as its originators. New
England was the first section to thorough
ly adopt the pastime. Its popularity
spread south down through the states of
Vermont and Massachusetts and Con-
necticnt, and now the already famous
clubs of Tuxedo and Grange, in New Jer-
sey, and the Woodland Park club at Sara
toga, only head a number of minor or
carnations in the east, while the forming
of clubs at st. Paul and Minneapolis, and
the great slides just erected in Chicago,
have given it an impetus which promises
to make tabogganing as much the ma
t1onal winter pastime in America as in
Canada.
New York though working under the
disadvantage of having a very light
snow fall during the winter months, has
not been inactive. The enthusiasm dis
played by the clubs in its immediate vic
The New York Baseball Club has re-
Gently opened two slides on the polo
ground, at One Hundred and Tenth
street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues,
and 1t Is expected that several clubs will
be formed in this city. The Harlan
Toboggan club has already organized.
with a membership of eighty, thirty of
this number being former members of
the Orange club.
Throughout New York state and in
New Jersey clubs are forming. In
Washington park, Brooklyn, slide has
been erected which is forty-f feet
high, and has descent of two hundred
feet, and total slide of nearly six humid
red feet. he bicycle clubs Of this city,
deprived of their favorite means of re-
creation for six months of the year, have
substituted the runnerless sled for the
wheel, and have gone SO far as to form
themselves into toboggan clubs. The
Tuxedo Park club has taken up the
sport with the same heartiness which
characterizes all its efforts for amuse,,
ment. 1t is now engaged in building a
new slide, which promises TO be model
of its kind The Orange club, with Mr..
Sumner Teale as its president is being
reorganized, and constructing new slides.
In speaking of the interest taken in to-
bogganing throughout New York a per-
son well acquainted with the subject and
who has just taken tour of the state
recently said: "Large slides are going
up all over-in Syracuse, Utica, Troy,
Albany, Rochester, Buffalo, Auburn. Hud-
son and Binghamton. A new slide is
building in Saratoga. I know that one
firm alone has already sold seven thous
\ 4ol L.
to be doubled before the season is over"
In speaking of the relative merits OF
the Canadian and American toboggans
an authority on the subject has said:
"The manufacture of toboggans in
the United States is an enterprise of
comparatively late date, and even in Can
ada, the birthplace of tobogganing, the
American make is now greatly in de-
mand. The Canadian toboggans are not
constructed on sciensifc principles. At
any rate, those which have seen are not.
In the first place, do not think maple is
as good material as hickory. Then,
again, [ do not approve of rigid wood
rails along the sides. They stiffen the
toboggan so that all the spring is taken
out of it, when the first principle in its
construction should be to make it springy.
Then most Canadian toaoggans are per-
fectly smooth and fiat on the bottom.
That is a mistake. Three or four planks
only ought to come in contact with the
ice, and they should be rounded off so
that the friction may be reduced to the
minimum. The best toboggan | ever saw
was of hickory, with three wooden strips
as thick as two of your fingers, SO raised
as to serve as runners"
Though tobogganing is now designated
by the skeptically inclined as ''craze,"
it is too healthy and fascinating pas
time to be ever wholly thrown aside.
Since the winter of 1884, when the now
celebrated slide was erected at Saratoga,
tobogganing has rapidly grown in popu-
larity in the United States.
The costumes, fashioned from soft
weollen blankets of every variety of
bright colors, the WOODEN stockings and
moccasins, the tuque, with its sash to
match, lend certain picturesqueness to
the sport which is lacking in almost every